The Waiting, the Wolves and the Good Shepherd
Thesis The thing we are most waiting for in our seasons of longing and uncertainty is not changed circumstances but God himself, who has already come to us in Jesus Christ and will one day close the remaining gap when he returns.
The shape of the argument
16 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.
- hypothetical · unit #7 — Constructs a vivid hypothetical scenario placing the listener inside the experience of an exiled Israelite hearing Isaiah 40 for the first time, making the text's original audience emotionally accessible and setting up contemporary application.
- personal story · unit #10 — Personal story from the pastor's childhood illustrating the difference between wanting gifts and wanting the giver, with 2020 adding poignancy as health risks make the grandmother's presence uncertain. The analogy pivots from human relationships to the divine: we ultimately long for God, not just his gifts.
- personal story · unit #12 — A story from community group about a father's bedtime ritual with his daughter illustrating unconditional love grounded in identity rather than performance. The analogy maps onto God's relationship with Israel — he remains their God because of who he is, not because of what they've done.
- The good news to waiting people is not about what they're waiting for but who they are waiting for — God himself. unit #9
- Our hearts have been waiting for God himself since we entered this world, and we must point our longings in that direction. unit #11
- God's relationship with us is not dependent on our performance but on his making us his children, and the incarnation is God's ultimate answer to the question 'where are you?' unit #15
"Do you know I love you? Am I ever going to stop loving you? Why will I never stop loving me? Because you're my dad." — Community group member's father (unit #12)
Full transcript
0 · Opens with congregational rapport and personal gratefulness, establishing relational warmth and humility before transitioning to the sermon proper
I'm gonna say something. Mrs. Wheeler, we loved seeing you. Thanks for your gratefulness. Though we do know when you, we want to know when you referenced how the deacons were fun, which deacon were you talking about? Who's the fun deacon?
I know each of them thinks it's them.
If you're new here, my name is Ricky and I am one of the pastors here at the church. And this month we're expressing gratefulness and so I want to express gratefulness to my wife because last Sunday was our 12th anniversary, which is awesome. So, which is a miracle that she married me in the first place and she stayed with me for 12 years. And I just wanna say this, I know that at our church, often I'm the person teaching the Bible or saying something in the front, but nothing that I do would be possible without Jen. And I really do mean that.
This year, like many years, she's seen me at my highs and at my lowest of lows, and she's been faithful to point me to Jesus and be a steady, encouraging presence. So if you've ever been blessed by anything that I've done at the church, please thank Jen, because she's really the one that enables that to happen. So babe, I love you. Thanks for sticking with me.
1 · Signals the text and announces a sermon plan change, framing the message as Spirit-led responsiveness to the approaching Advent season rather than predetermined curriculum
We're going to be in the book of Isaiah today. So I wanna invite you to turn to Isaiah chapter 40. Now we had a different plan in terms of what to preach today, but after thinking about it, after taking it to the Lord, we really do feel like God is leading us to lean into the Advent season that we are about to start next weekend officially.
2 · Establishes the existential problem the sermon addresses: the congregation's collective experience of waiting in 2020 for healing, resolution, and normalcy
Because this week, as I have talked to many people, I think we're all waiting. In different ways. I think we feel stuck waiting in some ways as we close this year out. We are waiting and grieving with the Orkut family as they deal with what is now a longer wait than they would like to see their daughter and sister again. We're waiting for several folks in our church who have had the virus, had coronavirus, to be fully restored. Some folks are folks like the Parrishes are still waiting for a full healing and restoration. We are waiting for the— being able to have a free and normal in every way Christmas and Thanksgiving season again. And in some ways, I think we hate this feeling of waiting, but in other ways, I think this feeling is one of the best things the Lord could do for us this year.
We're gonna see today that waiting can be a good thing if we point our waiting in the right direction.
3 · Presents the primary text in full — Isaiah 40:9-11 — establishing the biblical foundation for the sermon's argument about God's arrival and shepherding care for his waiting people
Beginning in verse 9, we're gonna be in Isaiah 40. I wanna read just 3 verses beginning in verse 9. This is God's word. Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, Herald of good news, lift it up! Fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God!' Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosoms and gently lead those that are with young. This is the word of the Lord.
4 · Invokes God's help in the sermon's interpretive task, specifically asking for divine assistance in redirecting the congregation's longings during a season of waiting
And Father, I pray that you would help us. God, I pray that you would speak to us in this season of waiting. Help us to point our longings to the right place as we gather In your name, amen.
5 · Announces the sermon's structural framework — three questions drawn from the text — and launches into the first question, establishing both movement and interpretive method
All right, I got 3 questions we're gonna ask the text today. The first question is this, what are you waiting for? Or rather 3 questions the text asks us, what are you waiting for?
Recent preaching context
The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.
Discuss · apply · pray
Isaiah 40:11
He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
Why this verse: This verse captures the sermon's central claim: that what we wait for in longing and uncertainty is not changed circumstances but God himself—present now as our Good Shepherd, protecting and sustaining us through danger. It is the text's final word and the measure of all comfort offered to waiting people.
6 questions for your group this week
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What does Isaiah 40:9-11 tell us the Lord is coming to do for his people? What specific images does the prophet use to describe God's arrival, and what does each one reveal about who God is in a moment of exile and waiting?Isaiah 40:9-11→ How would these images have landed differently for someone in captivity in Babylon versus someone hearing them in relative comfort?
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The sermon claims that our deepest waiting is not for circumstances to change but for God himself. Where do you find yourself waiting right now—for healing, for resolution, for normalcy—and what would it mean to reorient that waiting toward God rather than toward the outcome you're hoping for?
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Read John 1:1-14 together. How does the incarnation—God coming to us in Jesus Christ—answer the exile Israel faced in Isaiah's day? What gap did the incarnation close, and what gap remains open for us until Christ's return?John 1:1-14→ If the incarnation already happened, why do we still experience longing and waiting?
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The sermon describes God as warrior, giver, and shepherd. In your own life right now, which of these three roles do you most need God to be? What would it look like to trust him in that role this week?Isaiah 40:10-11
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The 'wolves' in the sermon represent the dangers, threats, and uncertainties that surround us. What wolves are prowling around your community, your family, or your own heart right now—and how does the presence of the Good Shepherd change the way you face them?→ Does knowing God is with you eliminate the threat, or does it change something else about how you experience it?
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The sermon suggests that our identity and security rest not on our performance but on God making us his children through Christ. Where are you tempted to think God's care for you depends on your faithfulness, and how would receiving this as pure gift reshape your waiting?Isaiah 40:11
5-day reading plan
This week we discover that what we're waiting for is not changed circumstances but God himself—who has already come in Christ and sustains us now as our Good Shepherd.
Isaiah's first thirty-nine chapters are a record of God's people waiting—through exile, judgment, and exile's threat—for the Lord to answer their deepest question: Where are you? As we read those chapters, we see the pattern: longing precedes the answer. Our own waiting is not new; it is part of the story God has been writing since Eden. We too are waiting for what Israel waited for—and the good news is that God has already answered.
Psalm 25 is a prayer of waiting written by someone under threat, hungry for deliverance. But notice what the psalmist actually asks for: not safety first, but knowledge of God's ways and presence. 'Make me know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.' The waiting of the psalm is not primarily about circumstances changing but about the soul drawing near to God. When we learn to wait for God rather than for outcomes, our seasons of longing become seasons of intimacy.
John announces that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us—God himself entered the gap between heaven and earth, closing the distance through sheer grace. We did not climb to God; God came down to us. And to all who receive him, he gives the right to become children of God, not because we earned it but because he made it so. This is the answer to every season of waiting: God has come, and in coming, he has made us family.
The second half of Isaiah is written to exiles—people in the middle of their waiting, not yet home. Yet the prophet announces that God has not left them. He comes as a warrior to fight for them, as a giver to sustain them, as a shepherd to gather and protect them. We too are in the middle—waiting for Christ's return while already indwelt by his Spirit. The promise is not that the wolves disappear today but that the Shepherd walks with us through the dark places until they do.
Reread these verses slowly: the good news is announced, the Lord comes with might, he gathers the lambs in his arms, he carries them in his bosom. This is both a promise already fulfilled—Jesus has come and carried us—and a promise still to be completed—he will one day gather us fully into his embrace. Your waiting this week is holy waiting. Point it toward him, and rest in the shepherd who has already made his way to you.
Prayer for the Waiting: God Has Come
Father, we come before you in this season of waiting, acknowledging that our deepest longing is not for changed circumstances but for you yourself. We confess that we have spent this year — and so many seasons before — waiting for healing, for resolution, for normalcy to return. We have believed that if only our situations would shift, if only the wolves would cease their circling, then we would finally be at peace. But your word to us through Isaiah speaks differently: the good news to waiting people is not about what they are waiting for but who they are waiting for — you.
Forgive us for pointing our hearts toward the wrong things. Forgive us for the times we have treated our longings as if they were ultimately about comfort or safety or the restoration of what we've lost, when all along our hearts have been waiting for you. We acknowledge that we cannot satisfy the deepest hunger in our own souls, and no circumstance — no matter how favorable — will ever fill the gap that only you can close.
Yet here is the good news we receive this day: you have not left us abandoned in our waiting. In Jesus Christ, you have already come. You have closed the gap between heaven and earth, between your holiness and our brokenness, through his incarnation, his death, and his resurrection (Isaiah 40:9-11, John 1). The Good Shepherd has arrived. He protects us from the wolves that still circle. He gathers us in his arms and carries us close to his heart, sustaining us with his own presence even now, in this in-between time before his return.
Grant us the grace, O Lord, to reorient our waiting. Teach us to wait not for circumstances to change but for you to be fully revealed. Help us to see that in Jesus, you have already answered the deepest question of our hearts: 'Where are you?' He is here. Give us eyes to see his protection, his provision, his tender care in the ordinary and difficult days ahead. And as we wait for the day when the wolves are gone and we are embraced fully in your presence, fill us with the hope and joy of those who know they are not waiting alone. All glory and honor belong to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
Who Are You Waiting For?
This card invites your family to notice the difference between waiting for something to change and waiting for someone. After the sermon, your kids may still be thinking about wolves and shepherds—use that image to help them see that Jesus is the shepherd we're actually longing for, even when we don't realize it.
In the sermon, we talked about waiting—waiting for things to get better, waiting for hard things to end. But Ricky said the thing we're really waiting for isn't a 'what,' it's a 'who.' So here's the question: Right now, what are you waiting for? And then—who do you think you're really waiting for underneath that? (Hint: it might be Jesus, the Good Shepherd.)
Waiting Together for the Shepherd
- What did you hear about your own waiting this year—what longing did the sermon help you name, and where do you sense God calling you to point that longing toward himself rather than toward changed circumstances?
- How have we as a couple been waiting together, and where might we encourage each other to trust that the Good Shepherd is present with us now, even in the gaps that haven't closed yet?
- What is one way the other person's faith has been a shelter to you this year, and how can we pray for each other to know more deeply that we are not abandoned?
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